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A few more younger pics

This one I think was on Easter, and I think I must have been around four. My sister was kneeling so you can see how tiny I was.

This one was taken in 1957 with my friend Fred, who is still a very close friend of mine. I was nine at that time. I was just as active as any other kid on my block. I would play baseball, football, and basketball with all the other kids. No one in my neighborhood treated me any different than any other kid.

When I was in grade school, I remember having dye shot into my hips and had x-rays taken of them. The explanation I remember being given at that time was that I have no hip sockets, and there was some sort of a liquid sack that formed around the end of the hip bone.
Several times a year, that liquid sack would break causing the end of the hip bone to rub against the muscle of my hip. This was very painful, and all I could do was lay in bed for 3 to 4 days until another sack formed around the end of the bone. I would never know when I was going to break, but it usually happened when I would twist my leg the wrong way, or really wear myself out playing or walking too far.
This happened several times a year until I started using a scooter when I was about 32 years old.

I like your movie-star gaze! It's so cool to see your journey, especially coming from another generation. I've never heard about the sack formation before. I think a lot of us can relate to the lack of information provided sometimes... vague descriptions of joints missing, no hip sockets, etc... I never understood what my hips were or how they worked until I saw x-rays. I think once we see our own x-rays, it's really eye opening. It made me think, wow... I'm amazed I can even do this!

You sound like a very interesting man and I thank you so much for sharing the pictures. With so many advances today, as far as technologies and accessibility requirements, I often wonder what it would have been like to go through life before these things were available. Goodness knows, we've come a long way, but there's even further to go, right? Take care.